We are often told that we learn the most from our failures. While it may be true, that doesn't make failure easy to deal with. This past weekend my wife and I attempted to summit Mt. Rainier in Washington. We have been training for a year and both felt prepared to make the 9,000 vertical-foot trek up the mountain reaching a height of 14,410 feet. As you can guess from the title of today's entry, we didn't quite make it.
We signed on with the RMI guide service at the end of last summer and then trained relentlessly to make our goal. I would say that I bordered on over training every week. During the process of our lengthy hikes, I developed a nasty case of Plantar Fasciitis. In the course of the year, I have tried a number of remedies and the one that seems to work the best is good old fashion stretching. I guess I need to add that to my daily exercise list. Who knew? Probably about every exercise instructor on the planet. Now I have first-hand experience in why stretching is important.
My wife and I felt very prepared for the climb and had a workout schedule that had us increasing our long hikes progressively higher each week. Often times we would have to cut our distance short because of snow. In hindsight, we should have embraced the snow and continued upwards with crampons and ice axes. Instead we turned around, hiked down, and then back up to reach our vertical goal. As part of the training from RMI before starting our climb, they taught us how to walk up and downhill safely in the snow. As an avid skier, I thought I had those skills already. I didn't but now I do.
On one of our last hikes preparing for Mt. Rainier, we hiked to the top of Mt. Olympus in Utah. It is a hike of about 4200 vertical feet over the course of 3.5 miles. The last quarter mile is more of a rock scramble than a hike and rock climbing skills come in handy. You go up about 700 vertical feet in that short distance and that turned out to be incredibly useful as there is a similar section on Mt. Rainier, only much longer and sketchier.
So what went wrong? We started hiking Mt. Rainier at around 10am on Friday morning and hiked about 5,000 vertical feet up to Camp Muir over the course of 4 miles. We knew about that as that is what we trained for. The whole team took a nice pace that we all felt we could keep and made it to our stopping point at about 3pm. Then we got some food and rested. Some of us even fell asleep. Then at 10pm our guides came into our bunkhouse and told us to get ready for the push to the summit. Unfortunately, I never trained for that. I probably should have as there is a mental element I didn't quite anticipate.
We started hiking up the Cowlitz Glacier and about 100 yards later, I had a wind gust blow me off the trail and onto the ground, spraining my ankle in the process. I jumped right back up and didn't tell anyone about my ankle as I didn't want to end my climb that early. We continued up to the Ingraham Glacier where we took our first break of the night. The guides asked how we felt and I wanted to continue.
Next came Disappointment Cleaver, an aptly named feature on the mountain. For those that don't know, a cleaver is an outcropping of rock that cuts a glacier in two. Imagine a shark fin slicing massive blocks of ice as they slowly work their way down the mountain. A cleaver has the advantage that you are walking on solid ground instead of ice and snow. Unfortunately that rock is crumbly and very unstable. It made the rock scramble on Olympus look super easy. We fought our way to the top of the cleaver and had our second break of the night. I felt spent. I tried to eat a Snickers bar as I needed calories and food. My stomach politely informed me not to put anything else in it or I would experience a Technicolor burp. Who can't finish a Snickers bar? Well this is one instance I couldn't. When the guides asked me if I could continue, my stomach said no, my ankle said no, and before I could stop my mouth, it said no loud enough for the guides to hear. I had reached my high point of the trip. I had thought everyone else had too as the winds gusted into the 50 mile per hour range. The guides almost made that the high point for the entire group. Fortunately for the others, they persevered to the top.
In hindsight I know I could have made it to the top. Getting all the way to the bottom safely is a different story. If I had gone to the top, my other team members would have gotten to see a helicopter rescue and that isn't good for anyone. Instead I safely made my way back to Camp Muir with several other climbers and a guide. I waited for the rest of the team to descend and then headed all the way back to the parking lot. Fortunately I could glissade below Camp Muir which is a fancy way of saying I slid down on my butt. It is a highly effective means of travel on snow and I highly recommend it. I don't think my ankle could have made it down without it.
The final lesson I learned from this adventure is that I need to be in better fitness condition. While I exercise a lot and am in better shape than 98% of the general population, I really need to be better than 99%. Upon hearing about our adventures, my daughter now wants to give it a shot. Perhaps I will try to improve my fitness and accompany her. If not, I may give up mountain climbing and enter a few pie eating contests instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment